Mause I 413f
Politics/Collective Action/Olson: According to a 1965 (1) thesis by Mancur Olson on collective action, there is an asymmetry in the organisational and conflict capacity of business and environmental associations.
VsOlson: the situation of environmental associations is not quite as it should be according to Olson's logic. Protest as a central form of action has lost importance in the last 20 years. (Roose, 2009, p. 111) (2) The asymmetries mentioned above have also eased (von Winter, 2001, p. 218) (3)
- - -
Brocker I 486
Politics/Olson: Thesis: The interests of small groups are overrepresented in political competition. "The high degree of organisation of entrepreneurial interests and the power of these entrepreneurial interests must be largely due to the fact that entrepreneurs are spread across a large number of (generally oligopolistic) 'industries', each comprising only a fairly small number of companies" (4). See Collectives/Olson, Communicative Action/Olson, Power/Olson: smaller groups behave much differently according to Olson. In particular, smaller groups can be better controlled by selective incentives.
Problem: large groups are always in danger of being exploited by smaller groups: For example, agricultural migrant workers, employees, taxpayers, consumers: these groups usually have no organization "that could oppose the power of organized or monopolistic producers". (5)